Details
Synopsis
This comprehensive history of the Central Intelligence Agency, from the Cold War through the War on Terror, is written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, who interviewed hundreds of former CIA employees (including several directors), and who pored through "the Company's" archives. Tim Weiner tells how the CIA grew out of the OSS under the legendary spymaster "Wild Bill" Donovan and how the fortunes of the agency, for better or worse, most often lay with whoever served as its director. The great revelations in Weiner's book are the accounts of how CIA resources were diverted towards politically motivated ends, including domestic surveillance of Americans. These forays, under presidents from both parties, were in direct violation of the agency's charter and, in Weiner's view, they undermined the role of the agency, diverting it from its main mission: to obtain the best intelligence abroad on America's enemies. Weiner's well-told if somewhat critical account includes many fascinating stories within a coherent history, and makes fascinating reading. Winner of the 2007 National Book Award in Nonfiction.
| Size | | Length: | 812 pages | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 27.2 oz |
Industry Reviews
"[A] credible and damning indictment of American intelligence policy."
(06/04/2007)
"Anyone tempted to write this book off as an anti-C.I.A. screed had better look at Mr. Weiner’s sources. The author has impressively studied the archival record, teased out newly declassified primary documents and done numerous interviews to glean as much as can be publicly known about the agency’s history. Some of the most damning criticism of the C.I.A.’s past performance in this book comes not from gadflies or ideologues but from ex-officials and long-secret authorized accounts by C.I.A. historians....The most notorious muckraking C.I.A. books of the 1970s aspired to shatter the agency and make sure Americans never tried to create one again. Mr. Weiner’s goal is just the opposite. He hopes that his book will 'serve as a warning,' insisting that 'this nation may not long endure as a great power unless it finds the eyes to see things as they are in the world.'"
(07/12/2007)
"LEGACY OF ASHES deserves a wide readership, and will probably win one given the page-turning gusto of its narrative."
(07/15/2007)
"It is not hyperbolic to say that Weiner's book is the greatest ever written about the CIA....If a subsequent writer produces a book about the CIA half as insightful, thorough or penetrating, he or she can be proud of the achievement."
(07/14/2008)
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